Pilotless plane takes off in Sonoma County

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department has suspended its aerial search for a pilotless plane that took off this afternoon with its owner watching helplessly from the airstrip.

The search using the Sheriff's Department helicopter was stopped at about 7:20 p.m. and will resume at daybreak, Lt. Rich Sweeting said. He said the runaway plane -- a tandem, two-seat light aircraft -- had enough fuel to stay aloft for about two hours.

"The assumption is that the aircraft has crashed, although I can't confirm that," Sweeting said tonight.

According to the Sheriff's Department, the plane's owner was out of the aircraft with the throttle on at about 4:30 p.m. when it broke loose from its moorings and lifted off from a small farm airstrip in the Two Rock area in southwest Sonoma County. The owner may have been working on the plane while warming it up, Sweeting said.

The plane's owner immediately contacted the Sheriff's Department on his cell phone as he tracked the aircraft with his car, Sweeting said. About three hours ago, the Sheriff's Department said the plane was spotted near Petaluma heading northeast toward Sonoma Mountain.

Earlier tonight, the California Highway Patrol, which was assisting in the search using its own fixed-wing aircraft, notified the Sheriff's Department that it received a signal from an emergency locator transmitter in an area about 4 miles east of Petaluma.

As of 8:30 p.m., no wreckage had been found, and no citizens had reported a crash, Sweeting said. He said the relative dearth of fuel aboard the aircraft would mean that the chances of fire in a crash would be "pretty slim," making a crash of the small plane even less auspicious.

The Sheriff's Department identified the aircraft is an Aeronca Champion, a high-wing plane with a 30-100 horsepower engine, that was originally manufactured in the '40s and '50s.

"Luckily in Sonoma County there are a lot of wide-open areas," Sweeting said of a possible crash. "Most of the acreage in Sonoma County is not populated."